Earth ploughs through clouds of small rocky debris strewn along the orbit of Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle between 17 July and 24 August each year, encountering the densest particle swarms around 13 August. The cometary debris enters our atmosphere at speeds up to 58 kilometres per second (130,000 mph), vaporising from friction with the air causing the streaks of light we call shooting stars. The radiant is the position in the sky from which the meteors appear to originate. Predictions of a surge in meteor rates around 3am BST favours pre-dawn observations from the UK on the 13th when a shooting star per minute might be seen at moonset. This graphic shows a view centred on the northeast about five spans of an outstretched hand at arm’s length wide at 1am BST on Tuesday, 13 August for the heart of the British Isles. AN graphic by Ade Ashford.Keen astronomers in the British Isles know that August marks the return of truly dark skies since astronomical twilight no longer lasts all night. This is also the month that Northern Hemisphere skywatchers turn their attention to the Perseids, the favourite annual meteor shower of many an observer.A reliable annual shower, the Perseids grace ...